Along with the arrogant pride that seems dominant among evangelical Christians (EC), prejudice is another word that comes to mind. Check out the definition from dictionary.com: "an unfavorable opinion or feeling formed beforehand or without knowledge, thought, or reason." From an external perspective, it seems as though most ECs are extremely prejudice about their beliefs.
I suppose, for me, the biggest factor is the whole "I am right, you are wrong stance." that ECs have. Before I or they open our mouths, a typical EC has already formed an unfavorable opinion AND feeling about what I believe because it is not what they believe. This is often done without any thought, knowledge or reason. SO by definition an EC is prejudice against what I believe.
This attitude puts me on the defensive, because the pride and prejudice is an offensive technique. It seems like it is designed to proactively preserve the ECs own belief system without having to sort through the beliefs, knowledge and/or reasoning of other people around them. And because I am now on the defensive I too get caught up in emotionally responding to an EC rather than being able to sort through the dialog with reason and understanding.
Before an EC reads this and says "Well you are prejudice for thinking this about Christians," I have Christian friends who do not have the pride and prejudice which is carried by so many main-stream Christians. I have very good and open dialog with those people.
So I want to make a deal with ECs. Leave me out of your life and I will keep mine from you. I don't want to converse with someone who already has a predetermined mindset and is unwilling to take in new information just as much as you don't want to converse with someone who thinks you are ignorant for believing in something equivalent to Santa Clause. Deal?
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